Microsoft .NET eCommerce Platform

Virto Commerce is an open-source, API-powered, modular, composable, and headless solution specifically tailored to B2B companies. The current version is built on a .NET 6 development toolkit (supported by Microsoft until 2024), an open-source cross-platform solution for both medium and enterprise-level businesses. The strength of Virto Commerce from 2021 onward is evidenced by the tremendous expansion of its product line. In addition to the classic Virto Commerce .NET-based platform, which can be installed locally or in the cloud, the SaaS version named Virto Commerce Cloud and the specialized Virto Marketplace version were all introduced in 2021-2022.

The acronym ASP stands for Active Server Pages. This refers to server-side scripting language developed by Microsoft to create dynamic web pages. The technology was initially presented in 1996 and was so successful that it has been repeatedly improved and updated since then. Currently, the term ASP is understood as ASP.NET, an open-source cross-platform framework for building web apps and services using .NET Visual Studio environment and C# or any other programming language. You can learn more about what used to be called ASP.NET Core, at What is ASP.NET? | .NET (microsoft.com).

Microsoft .NET is an open-source developer platform useful for building a plethora of applications. One important factor is that .NET is free to use for any developer. Consider Microsoft .NET a software development architecture for building, running, and deploying web, desktop, server, and mobile applications. It is not to be confused with Microsoft ASP.NET. This is an implementation of ASP technology that simplifies the creation of web applications only and is part of the .NET platform. If you want to learn about .NET in greater detail, we recommend this comprehensive article, Announcing .NET 6 — The Fastest .NET Yet. It includes a huge number of links to Microsoft's clarifying documents.

Microsoft .NET Core (currently renamed to .NET with no Core in the product name) is an open-source cross-platform implementation of .NET architecture used to build server applications for Windows, Linux, and Mac. Looking at its history, .NET Core 1.0 was released in 2016 and the next commercial version, .NET Core 3.1 of this framework, got to the market in 2019. In 2020, cross-platform .NET Core merged with Windows-oriented .NET Framework to a unified .NET 5.0 developer platform. The current .NET 6.0 has been on the market since November 2021 and will be supported by Microsoft until mid-2024. 

Consider .NET a cross-platform framework for the development of web, server, and mobile applications running on Windows, Linux, and Mac. Developers can use .NET and its libraries to write applications in VB.NET, C #, and F #. Since 2020, the release of new versions of .NET has continued, as unified .NET 5 and .NET 6 platforms support development from both the server side and web applications. .NET is now a platform for building many different types of applications.

By many estimates, .NET is currently among the top three most popular development environments among the developer community. The rapid growth of the ecommerce industry attracts many vendors to this arena. With the popularity of .NET and availability of a large number of skilled .NET developers in the job market, the growth of ecommerce platforms in .NET is skyrocketing. .NET ecommerce platforms are highly scalable, secure, and easily upgradable. So-called “clean” architecture allows the best-ever customization functionality for the back end and interface.

ASP.NET allows programmers to build dynamic websites, web applications, and services. This Microsoft tool performs quickly compared to other popular web frameworks against independent TechEmpower benchmarks. However, we clarify that ASP.NET is intended to develop the front end of ecommerce applications with a high-performance WebAPI, such as Rest, GraphQL, and others. For the development of the server side and middleware, other tools from the .NET platform are used. Follow the link for more details about ASP.NET.

Microsoft .NET is an integrated development platform that is ideal for ecommerce applications. It includes ASP.NET for building web applications, Xamarin as a tool for creating mobile applications in the .NET family of languages (C#, F#, Visual Basic), which allows you to create a single code that runs in Android, iOS, and Windows. Visual Studio and Azure Logic Apps allow you to create different modules for ecommerce applications, as well as build middleware for the purpose of integration of ecommerce with other applications, such as your ERP and CRM.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 For Commerce is sometimes referred to as Microsoft eCommerce. In fact, this is a module in Dynamics 365, the large and sophisticated ERP system Microsoft developed for the corporate level. It cannot operate as an ecommerce solution on its own and requires an ERP core to run.

Microsoft does not have an ecommerce platform as a separate product. Instead, it offers a commerce module named Dynamics 365 For Commerce in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) system known as Microsoft Dynamics 365. The advantage of Dynamics 365 For Commerce is its omnichannel headless commerce engine. Virto Commerce can be integrated with Dynamics 365, and the Virto Professional Services team can help you execute this task.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 contains 12 applications, including the ecommerce-oriented Dynamics 365 For Commerce, which is an advanced platform for large retail chains. Many growing ecommerce companies are interested in migrating to Azure as Microsoft adds a lot of rich functionality to it. For small and medium-sized businesses, however, Dynamics 365 For Commerce may be too costly and requires highly qualified IT staff to deploy and support it.

The truth is that there is no such product as Azure Commerce. Because Microsoft Dynamics 365 For Commerce runs in the Azure cloud, it is sometimes referred to as Azure Commerce. At the same time, you can launch any ecommerce platform from independent vendors in the Azure cloud, including, for example, Virto Commerce.

Unified Commerce is not a product, but an architectural technique for connecting server systems to front-end channels through a single platform. Thus, omnichannel sales and interactions with customers are realized when you can start adding products to the cart in a mobile application, then continue on the desktop, and finally press the ‘buy’ button on your smart watch.